Inspector Queen sat at the writing-desk in his living-room scribbling industriously on a long narrow sheet of note-paper headed THE QUEENS.
It was Wednesday morning—a fair Wednesday morning, with the sun streaming into the room through the dormer windows and the cheerful noises of 87th Street faintly audible from the pavements below. The Inspector wore his dressing-gown and slippers. Djuna was busy at the table clearing away the breakfast dishes.
The old man had written:
Dear Son: As I wired you late last night, the case is finished. We got Stephen Barry very nicely by using Michaels’ name and handwriting as bait. I really ought to congratulate myself on the psychological soundness of the plan. Barry was desperate and like so many other criminals thought he could duplicate his crime without being caught.
I hate to tell you how tired I am and how unsatisfying spiritually the job of man-hunter is sometimes. When I think of that poor lovely little girl Frances, having to face the world as the sweetheart of a murderer.... Well, El, there’s little justice and certainly no mercy in this world. And, of course, I’m more or less responsible for her shame.... Yet Ives-Pope himself was quite decent a while ago when he telephoned me on hearing the news. I suppose in one way I did him and Frances a service. We—
The doorbell rang and Djuna, drying his hands hastily on a kitchen towel, ran to the door. District Attorney Sampson and Timothy Cronin walked in—excited, happy, both talking at once. Queen rose, covering the sheet of paper with a blotter.
“Q, old man!” cried Sampson, extending both hands. “My congratulations! Have you seen the papers this morning?”
“Glory to Columbus!” grinned Cronin, holding up a newspaper on which in screaming head-lines New York was apprised of the capture of Stephen Barry. The Inspector’s photograph was displayed prominently and a rhapsodic story captioned “Queen Adds Another Laurel” ran two full columns of type down the sheet.
The Inspector, however, seemed singularly unimpressed. He waved his visitors to chairs, and called for coffee, and began to talk about a projected change in the personnel of one of the city departments as if the Field case interested him not at all.
“Here, here!” growled Sampson. “What’s the matter with you? You ought to be throwing out your chest, Q. You act as if you’d pulled a dud rather than succeeded.”
“It’s not that, Henry,” said the Inspector with a sigh. “I just can’t seem to be enthusiastic about anything when Ellery isn’t by my side. By jingo, I wish he were here instead of in those blamed Maine woods!”
The two men laughed. Djuna served the coffee and for a time the Inspector was too occupied with his pastry to brood. Over his cigarette Cronin remarked: “I for one merely dropped in to pay my respects, Inspector, but I’m curious about some aspects of this case.... I don’t know much about the investigation as a whole, except what Sampson told me on the way up.”
“I’m rather at sea myself, Q,” put in the District Attorney. “I imagine you have a story to tell us. Let’s have it!”
Inspector Queen smiled sadly. “To save my own face I’ll have to relate it as if I did most of the work. As a matter of fact, the only really intelligent work in the whole sordid business was Ellery’s. He’s a sharp lad, that son of mine.”
Sampson and Cronin relaxed as the Inspector took some snuff and settled back in his armchair. Djuna folded himself quietly in a corner, ears cocked.
“In going over the Field case,” began the Inspector, “I will have to refer at times to Benjamin Morgan, who is really the most innocent victim of all. I want you to bear in mind, Henry, that whatever I say about Morgan is to go no further, either professionally or socially. I already have Tim’s assurance of silence....”
Inspector Queen’s statement here is not altogether true. Benjamin Morgan was far from “innocent.” But the Inspector’s sense of justice compelled him to shield the lawyer and keep his word regarding silence.—E. Q.
Both men nodded wordlessly. The Inspector continued:
“I needn’t explain that most investigations of crime begin with a search for the motive. Many times you can discard suspect after suspect when you know the reason behind the crime. In this case the motive was obscure for a long time. There were certain indications, like Benjamin Morgan’s story, but these were inconclusive. Morgan had been blackmailed by Field for years—a part of Field’s activities of which you gentlemen were ignorant, despite your knowledge of his other social habits. This seemed to point to blackmail as a possible motive—or rather the choking off of blackmail. But then any number of things could have been the motive—revenge, for example, by some criminal whom Field had been instrumental in ‘sending up.’ Or by a member of his criminal organization. Field had a host of enemies, and undoubtedly a host of friends who were friends only because Field held the whip-hand. Any one of scores of people—men and women both—might have had a motive for killing the lawyer. So that, since we had so many other pressing and immediate things to think about and do that night at the Roman Theatre, we did not bother much with motive. It was always in the background, waiting to be called into service.
“But mark this point. If it was blackmail—as Ellery and I eventually decided, since it seemed the most likely possibility—there were most certainly some papers floating about in Field’s possession which would be enlightening, to say the least. We knew that Morgan’s papers existed. Cronin insisted that the papers for which he was looking were about somewhere. So we had to keep our eyes constantly on the alert for papers—tangible evidence which might or might not make clear the essential circumstances behind the crime.
“At the same time, in the matter of documents, Ellery was piqued by the great number of books on handwriting-analysis he found among Field’s effects. We concluded that a man like Field, who had blackmailed once to our knowledge (in the case of Morgan) and many times to our suspicions; and who was keenly interested in the science of handwriting, might have been a forger to boot. If this were true, and it seemed a plausible explanation, then it probably meant that Field made a habit of forging the original blackmail papers. The only reason he could have for doing this, of course, would be to sell the forgeries and keep the originals for further extortion. His association with the underworld undoubtedly helped him master the tricks of the trade. Later, we discovered that this hypothesis was true. And by that time we had definitely established blackmail as the motive of the crime. Remember, though, that this led us nowhere, since any one of our suspects might have been the blackmail victim and we had no way of telling who it was.”
The Inspector frowned, settled back into his seat more comfortably.
“But I’m tackling this explanation the wrong way. It just goes to show you how habit will take hold of a man. I’m so accustomed to beginning with motive.... However! There is only one important and central circumstance which stands out in the investigation. It was a confounding clue—rather, the lack of a clue. I refer to the missing hat....
“Now the unfortunate thing about the missing hat was that we were so busy pressing the immediate inquiry at the Roman Theatre on Monday night we couldn’t grasp the full significance of its absence. Not that we weren’t bothered by it from the beginning—far from it. It was one of the first things I noticed when I examined the body. As for Ellery, he caught it as soon as he entered the theatre and bent over the dead man. But what could we do? There were a hundred details to take care of—questions to ask, orders to give, discrepancies and suspicious discoveries to clear up—so that, as I say, we inadvertently missed our great opportunity. If we had fully analyzed the meaning of the hat’s disappearance then and there—we might have clinched the case that very night.”
“Well, it hasn’t taken so long after all, you growler,” laughed Sampson. “This is Wednesday and the murder was committed a week ago Monday. Only nine days—what are you kicking about?”
The Inspector shrugged. “But it would have made a considerable difference,” he said. “If only we had reasoned it out—Well! When finally we did get round to dissecting the problem of the hat, we asked ourselves first of all: Why was the hat taken? Only two answers seemed to make sense: one, that the hat was incriminating in itself; two, that it contained something which the murderer wanted and for which the crime was committed. As it turned out, both were true. The hat was incriminating in itself because on the underside of the leather sweat-band was Stephen Barry’s name, printed in indelible ink; and the hat contained something which the murderer very emphatically wanted—the blackmail papers. He thought at the time, of course, that they were the originals.
“This did not get us very far, but it was a starting-point. By the time we left Monday night with the command to shut down the theatre, we had not yet found the missing hat despite a sweeping search. However, we had no way of knowing whether the hat had managed in some mysterious manner to leave the theatre, or whether it was still there though unrevealed by our search. When we returned to the theatre on Thursday morning we settled once and for all the question of the location of Monte Field’s pesky topper—that is, negatively. It was not in the theatre—that much was certain. And since the theatre had been sealed since Monday night, it follows that the hat must have left that same evening.
“Now everybody who left Monday night left with only one hat. In the light of our second search, therefore, we were compelled to conclude that somebody had walked out that night with Monte Field’s hat in his hand or on his head, necessarily leaving his own in the theatre.
“He could not have disposed of the hat outside the theatre except when he left at the time the audience was allowed to leave; for up to that time all exits were guarded or locked, and the left-hand alley was blocked first by Jess Lynch and Elinor Libby, next by John Chase, the usher, and after that by one of my policemen. The right-hand alley, having no exit other than the orchestra doors, which were guarded all night, offered no avenue of disposal.
“To go on with the thought—since Field’s hat was a tophat, and since nobody left the theatre dressed in a tophat who was not wearing evening clothes—this we watched for very closely—therefore the man who took away the missing hat must have been garbed in full dress. You might say that a man planning such a crime in advance would have come to the theatre without a hat, and therefore would have none to dispose of. But if you will stop to think, you must see that this is highly improbable. He would have been quite conspicuous, especially while entering the theatre, if he went in minus a tophat. It was a possibility, of course, and we kept it in mind; but we reasoned that a man working out such a consummate crime as this would have shied from taking any unnecessary chance of being identified. Also, Ellery had satisfied his own mind that the murderer had no foreknowledge of the Field hat’s importance. This made still more improbable the possibility that the murderer arrived without a hat of his own. Having a hat of his own, he might have disposed of it, we thought, during the first intermission—which is to say, before the crime was committed. But Ellery’s deductions proving the murderer’s lack of foreknowledge made this impossible, since he would not have known at the first intermission of the necessity of doing away with his own hat. At any rate, I think we were justified in assuming that our man had to leave his own hat in the theatre and that it must have been a tophat. Does it follow so far?”
“It seems logical enough,” admitted Sampson, “though very complicated.”
“You have no idea how complicated it was,” said the Inspector grimly, “since at the same time we had to bear in mind the other possibilities—such as the man walking out with Field’s hat being not the murderer but an accomplice. But let’s get on.
“The next question we asked ourselves was this: what happened to the tophat which the murderer left behind in the theatre? What did he do with it? Where did he leave it? ... I can tell you that was a puzzler. We had ransacked the place from top to bottom. True, we found several hats backstage which Mrs. Phillips, the wardrobe-mistress, identified as the personal property of various actors. But none of these was a personally owned tophat. Where then was the tophat which the murderer had left behind in the theatre? Ellery with his usual acumen struck right at the heart of the truth. He said to himself, ‘The murderer’s tophat must be here. We have not found any tophat whose presence is remarkable or out of the ordinary. Therefore the tophat we are seeking must be one whose presence is not out of the ordinary.’ Fundamental? Almost ridiculously so. And yet I myself did not think of it.
“What tophats were there whose presence was not out of the ordinary—so natural and in so natural a place that they were not even questioned? In the Roman Theatre, where all the costumes were hired from Le Brun, the answer is simply: the rented tophats being used for purposes of the play. Where would such tophats be? Either in the actors’ dressing-rooms or in the general wardrobe room backstage. When Ellery had reached this point in his reasoning he took Mrs. Phillips backstage and checked up on every tophat in the actors’ rooms and the wardrobe room. Every tophat there—and all were accounted for, none being missing—was a property tophat bearing on its lining the Le Brun insignia. Field’s hat, which we had proved to be a Browne Bros. topper, was not among the property tophats or anywhere backstage.
“Since no one left the theatre Monday night with more than one tophat, and since Monte Field’s hat was unquestionably taken out of the theatre that same night, it was positively established that the murderer’s own tophat must have been in the Roman all the time the house was sealed, and was still there at the time of our second search. Now, the only tophats remaining in the theatre were property tophats. It therefore follows that the murderer’s own tophat (which he was forced to leave behind because he walked out with Field’s) must have been one of the property hats backstage, since, let me repeat, these were the only tophats of which it could physically have been one.
“In other words—one of these property tophats backstage belonged to the man who left the theatre Monday night in full dress wearing Field’s silk topper.
“If this man were the murderer—and he could scarcely be anyone else—then our field of inquiry was narrowed to a considerable degree. He could only have been either a male member of the cast who left the theatre in evening clothes, or somebody closely connected with the theatre and similarly dressed. In the latter case, such a person would have had to have, first, a property tophat to leave behind; second, undisputed access to the wardrobe and dressing-rooms; and, third, the opportunity to leave his property tophat in either place.
“Now let us examine the possibilities in the latter case—that the murderer was closely connected with the theatre, yet not an actor.” The Inspector paused to sniff deeply of the snuff in his treasured box. “The workmen backstage could be discarded because none of them wore the evening clothes which were necessary in order to take away Field’s tophat. The cashiers, ushers, doormen and other minor employees were eliminated for the same reason. Harry Neilson, the publicity man, was also dressed in ordinary street clothes. Panzer, the manager, was attired in full dress, it is true, but I took the trouble to check up his head-size and found it to be 6¾—an unusually small size. It would be virtually impossible for him to have worn Field’s hat, which was 7⅛. It is true that we left the theatre before he did. On my way out, however, I definitely instructed Thomas Velie to make no exception in Panzer’s case, but to search him as the others had been searched. I had examined Panzer’s hat merely from a sense of duty while in his office earlier in the evening, and found it to be a derby. Velie subsequently reported that Panzer walked out with this derby on his head and no other hat in his possession. Now—if Panzer had been the man we were looking for, he might have walked out with Field’s hat despite its larger size by merely holding it in his hand. But when he left with a derby, that was conclusive that he could not have taken away Field’s hat, since the theatre was shut down immediately after his departure and no one—my men on duty saw to that—no one entered the premises until Thursday morning under my own eye. Theoretically it was possible for Panzer, or anyone else in the Roman personnel, to have been the murderer had he been able to secrete Field’s tophat in the theatre. But this last hypothesis was dissipated by the report of Edmund Crewe, our official architectural expert, who definitely stated that there was no secret hiding-place anywhere in the Roman Theatre.
“The elimination of Panzer, Neilson and the employees left only the cast as possibilities. How we finally narrowed down the field of inquiry until we got to Barry, let’s leave for the moment. The interesting part of this case is really the startling and complex series of deductions which gave us the truth purely through logical reasoning. I say ‘us’—I should say Ellery....”
“For a police Inspector you are certainly a shrinking violet,” chuckled Cronin. “By gee, this is better than a detective-story. I ought to be working now, but since my boss seems to be as interested as I am—keep going, Inspector!”
Queen smiled, forging ahead.
“The fact that the murderer was traced to the cast,” he continued, “answers a question which has probably occurred to you and which certainly troubled us in the beginning. We could not at first understand why the theatre should have been chosen as a meeting-place for the transaction of secret business. When you stop to think about it, a theatre presents enormous disadvantages under ordinary circumstances. Extra tickets, to mention only one thing, have to be bought to insure privacy through empty seats in the vicinity. What a silly tangle to get into when other meeting-places are so much more convenient! A theatre is dark most of the time and disturbingly quiet. Any untoward noise or conversation is remarked. The crowds present a constant danger—one of recognition. However, all this is automatically explained when you realize that Barry was a member of the cast. From his standpoint the theatre was ideal—for who would dream of suspecting an actor of murder when the victim is found dead in the orchestra? Of course Field acquiesced, never suspecting what was in Barry’s mind and that he was conniving his own death. Even if he were a little suspicious, you must remember that he was accustomed to dealing with dangerous people and probably felt capable of taking care of himself. This may have made him a little overconfident—we have no way, of course, of knowing.
“Let me get back to Ellery again—my favorite subject,” continued the Inspector, with one of his recurrent dry chuckles. “Aside from these deductions about the hat—as a matter of fact, before the deductions were completely worked out—Ellery got his first indication of which way the wind blew during the meeting at the Ives-Pope house. It was clear that Field had not accosted Frances Ives-Pope in the alleyway between acts with merely flirtatious intentions. It seemed to Ellery that some connection existed between the two widely separated individuals. Now, this does not mean that Frances had to be aware of the connection. She was positive that she had never heard of or seen Field before. We had no reason to doubt her and every reason to believe her. That possible connection might have been Stephen Barry, provided Stephen Barry and Field knew each other without Frances’ knowledge. If, for example, Field had an appointment at the theatre Monday night with the actor and suddenly saw Frances, it was possible that in his half-drunken mood he would venture to approach her, especially since the subject he and Barry had in common concerned her so deeply. As for recognizing her—thousands of people who read the daily papers know every line of her features—she is a much-photographed young society lady. Field certainly would have acquainted himself with her description and appearance out of sheer thoroughness of business method.... But to return to the triangle-connection—Field, Frances, Barry—which I will go into in detail later. You realize that no one else in the cast except Barry, who was engaged to Frances and had been publicly announced as her fiancé, with pictures and all the rest of the journalistic business, could have satisfied so well the question: Why did Field accost Frances?
“The other disturbing factor concerning Frances—the discovery of her bag in Field’s clothes—was plausibly explained by her dropping it in the natural excitement of the moment when the drunken lawyer approached her. This was later confirmed by Jess Lynch’s testimony to the effect that he saw Field pick up Frances’ bag. Poor girl—I feel sorry for her.” The Inspector sighed.
“To get back to the hat—you’ll notice we always return to that blasted top-piece,” resumed Queen, after a pause. “I never knew of a case in which a single factor so dominated every aspect of the investigation.... Now mark this: Of the entire cast Barry was the only one who left the Roman Theatre Monday night dressed in evening clothes and tophat. As Ellery watched at the main door Monday night while the people were filing out, his mind characteristically registered the fact that the entire cast, except Barry, left the theatre wearing street clothes; in fact, he even mentioned this to Sampson and me in Panzer’s office later, although at the time neither of us realized its full significance.... Barry was therefore the only member of the cast who could have taken away Field’s tophat. Think this over a moment and you will see that, in view of Ellery’s hat-deductions, we could now pin the guilt to Barry’s shoulders beyond the shadow of a doubt.
“Our next step was to witness the play, which we did the evening of the day on which Ellery made the vital deductions—Thursday. You can see why. We wanted to confirm our conclusion by seeing whether Barry had the time during the second act to commit the murder. And, amazingly enough, of all the members of the cast, Barry was the only one who did have the time. He was absent from the stage from 9:20—he opened the business of the act and left almost at once—until 9:50, when he returned to the stage to remain there until the act ended. This was incontrovertible—part of a fixed and unchanging time-schedule. Every other player was either on the stage all the time or else went on and off at extremely short intervals. This means that last Thursday night, more than five days ago—and the whole case took only nine days to consummate—we had solved our mystery. But solving the mystery of the murderer’s identity was a far cry from bringing him to justice. You’ll see why in a moment.
“The fact that the murderer could not enter until 9:30 or thereabouts explains why the torn edges of LL32 Left and LL30 Left did not coincide. It was necessary for Field and Barry, you see, to come in at different times. Field could not very well enter with Barry or even at a noticeably late hour—the matter of secrecy was too important to Barry, and Field understood, or thought he did, how necessary it was for him to play the secret game.
“When we pinned the guilt on Barry Thursday night, we resolved to question subtly the other members of the cast as well as workmen backstage. We wanted to find out, of course, whether any one had actually seen Barry leave or return. As it happened, no one had. Everybody was busy either acting, redressing, or working backstage. We conducted this little investigation after the performance that night, when Barry had already left the theatre. And it was checkmate, right enough.
“We had already borrowed a seating-plan from Panzer. This map, together with the examination of the alleyway on the left and the dressing-room arrangement backstage—an examination made directly after the second act Thursday night—showed us how the murder was committed.”
Sampson stirred. “I’ve been puzzling my wits about that,” he confessed. “After all, Field was no babe-in-the-woods. This Barry must be a wizard, Q. How did he do it?”
“Every riddle is simple when you know the answer,” retorted the Inspector. “Barry, whose freedom began at 9:20, immediately returned to his dressing-room, slapped on a quick but thorough facial disguise, donned an evening-cloak and the tophat which was part of his costume— you’ll remember he was already dressed in evening-clothes—and slipped out of his room into the alley.
“Of course you can’t be expected to know the topography of the theatre. There is a series of tiers in a wing of the building backstage, facing the left alley, which is made up of dressing-rooms. Barry’s room is on the lowest tier, the door opening into the alleyway. There is a flight of iron steps leading down to the pavement.
“It was through this door that he quitted the dressing-room, walking through the dark alley while the side doors of the theatre were shut during Act II. He sneaked out into the street, since there was no guard at the head of the alley at that time—and he knew it—nor had Jess Lynch and his ‘girl’ arrived, luckily for him; and entered the theatre brazenly through the regular front entrance, as if he were a latecomer. He presented his ticket—LL30 Left—at the door, muffled in his cloak and of course well disguised. As he passed into the theatre he deliberately threw away his ticket-stub. This appeared to him to be a wise move, since he figured that if the ticket-stub were found there, it would point to a member of the audience and directly away from the stage. Also, if his plans fell through and he were later searched carefully, the finding of the stub on his person would be damning evidence. All in all, he thought his move not only misleading but protective.”
“But how did he plan to get to the seat without being ushered to it—and therefore seen?” objected Cronin.
“He hadn’t planned to evade the usher,” returned the Inspector. “Naturally, he had hoped, since the play was well on and the theatre dark, to gain the last row, the nearest to the door, before the usher could approach. However, even if the usher forestalled him and escorted him to the seat he was well disguised and in the blackness of the theatre proof enough against recognition. So that, if things turned out as badly as possible for him, the most that would be remembered was that some man, unknown, barely describable in general contour, arrived during the second act. As it happened he was not accosted, since Madge O’Connell was luckily seated with her lover. He managed to slip into the seat next to Field without being noticed.
“Remember, what I’ve just told you,” went on the Inspector, clearing his dry throat, “is not the result of deduction or investigation. We could have no means of discovering such facts. Barry made his confession last night and cleared up all these points.... Knowing the culprit was Barry, of course, we might have reasoned out the entire procedure—it follows simply and is the natural situation if you know the criminal. It wasn’t necessary, however. Does that sound like an alibi for Ellery or myself? Hmph!” The old man barely smiled.
“When he sat down next to Field he had a carefully planned idea of his course of action. Don’t forget that he was on a strict time-schedule and could not afford to waste a minute. On the other hand, Field, too, knew that Barry had to get back so he made no unnecessary delays. The truth of the matter, as Barry has told us, is that he expected to have a more difficult time with Field than he actually did have. But Field was sociably amenable to Barry’s suggestions and conversation, probably because he was quite drunk and expected to receive a huge sum of money within a short time.
“Barry first requested the papers. When Field cannily asked for the money before he produced the documents, Barry showed him a wallet bulging with apparently genuine bills. It was quite dark in the theatre and Barry did not take the bills apart. Actually they were stage-money. He patted them suggestively and did what Field must have expected: refused to hand over the money until he had checked the documents. Bear in mind that Barry was an accomplished actor and could handle the difficult situation with the confidence imparted to him by his stage training.... Field reached under his seat and to Barry’s utter astonishment and consternation produced his tophat. Barry says that Field remarked: ‘Never thought I’d keep the papers in this, did you? As a matter of fact, I’ve dedicated this hat to your history quite exclusively. See—it has your name in it.’ And with this astounding statement he turned back the band! Barry used his pocket-pencil flashlight and saw his name inked in on the underside of the leather sweat-band.
“Just imagine what went through his mind at this moment. Here he saw what seemed at the moment a ruinous accident to his careful plans. Should Field’s hat be examined—and of course it would be—at the time of the discovery of the body, then the name Stephen Barry on the band would be overwhelming evidence.... Barry had no time to rip out the band. In the first place he had no knife—unfortunately for him; and in the second place the hat-band was closely and securely stitched to the tough fabric. Working on split-time, he saw at once that the only course open to him was to take the hat away after he killed Field. Since he and Field were of the same general physique, with Field wearing an average-sized hat, 7⅛, he immediately decided to leave the theatre wearing or carrying Field’s hat. He would deposit his own in the dressing-room, where its presence was not out of the way, take Field’s hat from the theatre with him and destroy it as soon as he reached his rooms. It also occurred to him that if the hat were by some chance examined as he was leaving the theatre, his name printed inside would certainly ward off suspicion. In all probability it was this fact that made Barry feel he was running into no particular danger, even though he had not foreseen the unexpected circumstance.”
“Clever rogue,” murmured Sampson.
“The quick brain, Henry, the quick brain,” said Queen gravely. “It has run many a man’s neck into the noose.... As he made the lightning decision to take the hat, he realized that he could not leave his own in its place. For one thing, his hat was a snap-down—an opera-hat— but more important, it had the name of Le Brun, the theatrical costumer, stamped in it. You can see that this would immediately point to someone in the cast—just the thing he wished to avoid. He told me also that at the moment, and for quite some time thereafter, he felt that the most the police could deduce from the hat’s being missing was that it was taken because it contained something valuable. He could not see how this investigatory guess would point the finger of suspicion anywhere near him. When I explained to him the series of deductions Ellery made from the mere fact that the tophat was missing, he was utterly astounded.... You can see, now, that the only really fundamental weakness of his crime was due not to an oversight or a mistake on his part, but to an occurrence which he could not possibly have foreseen. It forced his hand and the entire chain was started. Had Barry’s name not been lettered in Field’s hat, there is no question in my mind but that he would be a free and unsuspected man to-day. The police records would carry another unsolved murder on its pages.
“I need not state that this entire train of thought flashed through his brain in less time than it takes to describe. He saw what he had to do and his plans adjusted themselves instantly to the new development.... When Field extracted the papers from the hat, Barry examined them cursorily under the lawyer’s watchful eye. He did this by the same pencil flashlight—a tiny streak of illumination quite obscured by their shielding bodies. The papers seemed in good order and complete. But Barry did not spend much time over the papers at the moment. He looked up with a rueful smile and said: ‘Seem to be all here, damn you’—very naturally, as if they were enemies under a truce and he was being a good sport. Field interpreted the remark for what it was intended to convey. Barry dipped into his pocket—the light was out now—and, as if he were nervous, took a swig at a pocket-flask of good whisky. Then as if recollecting his manners, he asked Field pleasantly enough if he would not take a drink to bind the bargain. Field, having seen Barry drink from the flask, could have no suspicion of foul play. In fact, he probably never dreamed that Barry would try to do him in. Barry handed him a flask....
“But it wasn’t the same flask. Under cover of the darkness he had taken out two flasks—the one he himself used coming from his left hip-pocket, the flask he gave Field coming from his right hip-pocket. In handing it over to Field, he merely switched flasks. It was very simple—and made simpler because of the darkness and the fuddled condition of the lawyer.... The ruse of the flask worked. But Barry had taken no chances. He had in his pocket a hypodermic filled with the poison. If Field had refused to drink Barry was prepared to plunge the needle into the lawyer’s arm or leg. He possessed a hypodermic needle which a physician had procured for him many years before. Barry had suffered from nervous attacks and could not remain under a doctor’s care since he was traveling from place to place with a stock company. The hypodermic was untraceable, therefore, on a cold trail years old; and he was ready if Field refused to drink. So you see—his plan, even in this particular, was foolproof....
“The flask from which Field drank contained good whiskey, all right, but mixed with tetra ethyl lead in a copious dose. The poison’s slight ether smell was lost in the reek of the liquor; and Field, drinking, gulped down a huge mouthful before he realized that anything was wrong, if he did at all.
“Mechanically he returned the flask to Barry, who pocketed it and said: ‘I guess I’ll look over these papers more carefully—there’s no reason why I should trust you, Field....’ Field, who was feeling extremely disinterested by this time, nodded in a puzzled sort of way and slumped down in his seat. Barry really did examine the papers but he watched Field like a hawk out of the corner of his eye all the time. In about five minutes he saw that Field was out—out for good. He was not entirely unconscious but well under way; his face was contorted and he was gasping for breath. He seemed unable to make any violent muscular movement or outcry. Of course, he’d utterly forgotten Barry—in his agony—perhaps didn’t remain conscious very long. When he groaned those few words to Pusak it was the superhuman effort of a practically dead man....
“Barry now consulted his watch. It was 9:40. He had been with Field only ten minutes. He had to be back on the stage at 9:50. He decided to wait three minutes more—it had taken less time than he had figured—to make sure that Field would not raise a rumpus. At 9:43 exactly, with Field terribly inanimate in his internal agonies, Barry took Field’s hat, snapped down his own and slipped it under his cloak, and rose. The way was clear. Hugging the wall, walking down the aisle as carefully and unobtrusively as possible, he gained the rear of the leftside boxes without anyone noticing him. The play was at its highest point of tension. All eyes were riveted on the stage.
“In the rear of the boxes he ripped off the false hair, rapidly adjusted his make-up and passed through the stagedoor. The door leads into a narrow passageway which in turn leads into a corridor, branching out to various parts of the backstage area. His dressing-room is a few feet from the entrance to the corridor. He slipped inside, threw his stage-hat among his regular effects, dashed the remaining contents of the death-flask into the wash-bowl and cleaned out the flask. He emptied the contents of the hypodermic into the toilet drain and put away the needle, cleaned. If it was found—what of it? He had a perfectly sound excuse for owning it and besides the murder had not been committed by such an instrument at all.... He was now ready for his cue, calm, debonair, a little bored. The call came at exactly 9:50, he went on the stage and was there until the hue-and-cry was raised at 9:55 in the orchestra....”
“Talk about your complicated plots!” ejaculated Sampson.
“It is not so complicated as it seems at first hearing,” returned the Inspector. “Remember that Barry is an exceptionally clever young man and above all an excellent actor. No one but an accomplished actor could have carried off such a plan. The procedure was simple, after all; his hardest job was to keep to his time-schedule. If he was seen by any one he was disguised. The only dangerous part of his scheme was the getaway—when he walked down the aisle and went backstage through the box stagedoor. The aisle he took care of by keeping an eye out for the usher while he sat next to Field. He had known beforehand, of course, that the ushers, due to the nature of the play, kept their stations more or less faithfully, but he counted on his disguise and hypodermic to help him through any emergency that might arise. However, Madge O’Connell was lax in her duty and so even this was in his favor. He told me last night, not without a certain pride, that he had prepared for every contingency.... As for the stagedoor, he knew from experience that at that period in the play’s progress practically every one was on the stage. The technical men were busy at their stations, too.... Remember that he planned the crime knowing in advance the exact conditions under which he would have to operate. And if there was an element of danger, of uncertainty—well, it was all a risky business, wasn’t it?—he asked me last night, smiling; and I had to admire him for his philosophy if for nothing else.”
The Inspector shifted restlessly. “This makes clear, I hope, just how Barry did the job. As for our investigation.... With the hat-deductions made and our knowledge of the murderer’s identity, we still had no inkling of the exact circumstances behind the crime. If you’ve been keeping in mind the material evidence which we had collected by Thursday night, you will see that we had nothing at all with which to work. The best thing we could hope for was that somewhere among the papers for which all of us were looking was a clue which would tie up to Barry. Even that would not be enough, but.... So the next step,” said the Inspector, after a sigh, “was the discovery of the papers in Field’s neat hiding-place at the top of the bed-canopy in his apartment. This was Ellery’s work from start to finish. We had found out that Field had no safety-deposit box, no post-office box, no outside residence, no friendly neighbor or tradesman, and that the documents were not in his office. By a process of elimination Ellery insisted that they must be somewhere in Field’s rooms. You know how this search ended—an ingenious bit of pure reasoning on Ellery’s part. We found Morgan’s papers; we found Cronin’s stuff relating to the gang activities—and by the way, Tim, I’m going to be keenly alive to what happens when we start on the big clean-up—and we found finally a wad of miscellaneous papers. Among these were Michaels’ and Barry’s.... You’ll remember, Tim, that Ellery, from the handwriting analysis business, deduced that possibly we would find the originals of Barry’s papers—and so we did.
“Michaels’ case was interesting. That time he went to Elmira on the ‘petty larceny’ charge, it was through Field’s clever manipulations with the law. But Field had the goods on Michaels and filed the documentary evidence of the man’s real guilt away in his favorite hiding-place, in the event that he might wish to use it at some future date. A very saving person, this Field.... When Michaels was released from prison Field used him unscrupulously for his dirty work, holding the threat of those papers over the man’s head.
“Now Michaels had been on the lookout for a long time. He wanted the papers badly, as you may imagine. At every opportunity he searched the apartment for them. And when he didn’t find them time after time, he became desperate. I don’t doubt that Field, in his devilishly sardonic way, enjoyed the knowledge that Michaels was ransacking the place day after day.... On Monday night Michaels did what he said he did—went home and to bed. But early Tuesday morning, when he read the papers and learned that Field had been killed, he realized that the jig was up. He had to make one last search for the papers—if he didn’t find them, the police might and he would be in hot water. So he risked running into the police net when he returned to Field’s rooms Tuesday morning. The story about the check was nonsense, of course.
“But let’s get on to Barry. The original papers we found in the hat marked ‘Miscellaneous’ told a sordid story. Stephen Barry, to make it short and ugly, has a strain of negroid blood in his veins. He was born in the South of a poor family and there was definite documentary evidence—letters, birth-records and the like—to prove that his blood had the black taint. Now Field, as you know, made it his business to run things like this to earth. In some way he got hold of the papers, how long ago we can’t say, but certainly quite a while back. He looked up Barry’s status at the time and found him to be a struggling actor, on his uppers more often than he was in funds. He decided to let the fellow alone for the time. If ever Barry came into money or in the limelight, there would be time enough to blackmail him.... Field’s wildest dreams could not have foreseen Barry’s engagement to Frances Ives-Pope, daughter of a multi-millionaire and blue-blood society girl. I needn’t explain what it would have meant to Barry to have the story of his mixed blood become known to the Ives-Popes. Besides—and this is quite important—Barry was in a constant state of impoverishment due to his gambling. What money he earned went into the pockets of the bookmakers at the race-track and in addition he had contracted enormous debts which he could never have wiped out unless his marriage to Frances went through. So pressing was his need, in fact, that it was he who subtly urged an early marriage. I have been wondering just how he regarded Frances sentimentally. I don’t think, in all fairness to him, that he was marrying wholly because of the money involved. He really loves her, I suppose—but then, who wouldn’t?”
The old man smiled reminiscently and went on. “Field approached Barry some time ago with the papers—secretly, of course. Barry paid what he could, but it was woefully little and naturally did not satisfy the insatiable blackmailer. He kept putting Field off desperately. But Field himself was getting into hot water because of his own gambling and was ‘calling in’ his little business deals one by one. Barry, pushed to the wall, realized that unless Field were silenced everything would be lost. He planned the murder. He saw that even if he did manage to raise the $50,000 Field demanded—a palpable impossibility— and even if he did get the original papers, yet Field might still wreck his hopes by merely circulating the story. There was only one thing to do—kill Field. He did it.”
“Black blood, eh?” murmured Cronin. “Poor devil.”
“You would scarcely guess it from his appearance,” remarked Sampson. “He looks as white as you or I.”
“Barry isn’t anywhere near a full-blooded negro,” protested the Inspector. “He has just a drop in his veins—just a drop, but it would have been more than enough for the Ives-Popes.... To get on. When the papers had been discovered and read—we knew everything. Who—how—why the crime was committed. So we took stock of our evidence to bring about a conviction. You can’t hale a man into court on a murder charge without evidence.... Well, what do you think we had? Nothing!
“Let me discuss the clues which might have been useful as evidence. The lady’s purse—that was out. Valueless, as you know.... The source of the poison—a total failure. Incidentally, Barry did procure it exactly as Dr. Jones suggested—Jones, the toxicologist. Barry bought ordinary gasoline and distilled the tetra ethyl lead from it. There was no trace left.... Another possible clue—Monte Field’s hat. It was gone.... The extra tickets for the six vacant seats—we had never seen them and there seemed little chance that we ever would.... The only other material evidence—the papers—indicated motive but proved nothing. By this token Morgan might have committed the crime, or any member of Field’s criminal organization.
“Our only hope for bringing about a conviction depended upon our scheme to have Barry’s apartment burglarized in the hope that either the hat, or the tickets, or some other clue like the poison or the poison-apparatus, would be found. Velie got me a professional housebreaker and Barry’s apartment was rifled Friday night while he was acting his rôle in the theatre. Not a trace of any of these clues came to light. The hat, the tickets, the poison—everything had been destroyed. Obviously, Barry would have done that; we could only make sure.
“In desperation, I called a meeting of a number of the Monday night audience, hoping that I would find someone who remembered seeing Barry that night. Sometimes, you know, people recall events later which they forgot completely in the excitement of a previous quizzing. But this too, as it happened, was a failure. The only thing of value that turned up was the orangeade boy’s testimony about seeing Field pick up an evening bag in the alley. This got us nowhere as far as Barry was concerned, however. And remember that when we questioned the cast Thursday night we got no direct evidence from them.
“So there we were with a beautifully hypothetical statement of facts for a jury, but not a shred of genuine evidence. The case we had to present would have offered no difficulties to a shrewd defending attorney. It was all circumstantial evidence, based chiefly on reasoning. You know as well as I do what a chance such a case would have in court.... Then my troubles really began, for Ellery had to leave town.
“I racked my brains—the few I have.” Queen scowled at his empty coffee-cup. “Things looked black enough. How could I convict a man without evidence? It was maddening. And then Ellery did me the final service of wiring me a suggestion.”
“A suggestion?” asked Cronin.
“A suggestion that I do a little blackmailing myself....”
“Blackmailing yourself?” Sampson stared. “I don’t see the point.”
“Trust Ellery to make a point that on the surface is obscure,” retorted the Inspector. “I saw at once that the only course left open to me was to manufacture evidence!”
Both men frowned in puzzlement.
“It’s simple enough,” said Queen. “Field was killed by an unusual poison. And Field was killed because he was blackmailing Barry. Wasn’t it fair for me to assume that if Barry were suddenly blackmailed on the identical score, he would again use poison—and in all likelihood the same poison? I don’t have to tell you that ‘Once a poisoner always a poisoner.’ In the case of Barry, if I could only get him to try to use that tetra ethyl lead on somebody else, I’d have him! The poison is almost unknown—but I needn’t explain further. You can see that if I caught him with tetra ethyl lead, that would be all the evidence I needed.
“How to accomplish the feat was another matter.... The blackmail opportunity fitted the circumstances perfectly. I actually had the original papers pertaining to Barry’s parentage and tainted blood. Barry thought these destroyed—he had no reason to suspect that the papers he took from Field were clever forgeries. If I blackmailed him he was in the same boat as before. Consequently he would have to take the same action.
“And so I used our friend Charley Michaels. The only reason I utilized him was that to Barry it would seem logical that Michaels, Field’s crony and bully and constant companion, should be in possession of the original papers. I got Michaels to write a letter, dictated by me. The reason I wanted Michaels to write it was that possibly Barry, through association with Field, was familiar with the man’s handwriting. This may seem a small point but I couldn’t take any chances. If I slipped up on my ruse, Barry would see through it at once and I’d never get him again.
“I enclosed a sheet of the original papers in the letter, to show that the new blackmailing threat had teeth. I stated that Field had brought Barry copies—the sheet enclosed proved my statement. Barry had no reason in the world to doubt that Michaels was milking him as his master had done before. The letter was so worded as to be an ultimatum. I set the time and the place and, to make a long story short, the plan worked....
“I guess that’s all, gentlemen. Barry came, he had his trusty little hypodermic filled with tetra ethyl lead, also a flask—an exact replica, you see, of the Field crime except for locale. My man—it was Ritter—was instructed to take no chances. As soon as he recognized Barry he covered him and raised the alarm. Luckily we were almost at their elbows behind the bushes. Barry was desperate and would have killed himself and Ritter, too, if he’d had half a chance.”
There was a significant silence as the Inspector finished, sighed, leaned forward and took some snuff.
Sampson shifted in his chair. “Listens like a thriller, Q,” he said admiringly. “But I’m not clear on a few points. For example, if this tetra ethyl lead is so little known, how on earth did Barry ever find out about it—to the degree of actually making some himself?”
“Oh.” The Inspector smiled. “That worried me from the moment Jones described the poison. I was in the dark even after the capture. And yet—it just goes to show how stupid I am—the answer was under my nose all the time. You will remember that at the Ives-Pope place a certain Dr. Cornish was introduced. Now Cornish is a personal friend of the old financier and both of them are interested in medical science. In fact, I recall Ellery’s asking at one time: ‘Didn’t Ives-Pope recently donate $100,000 to the Chemical Research Foundation?’ That was true. It was on the occasion of a meeting in the Ives-Pope house one evening several months ago that Barry accidentally found out about tetra ethyl lead. A delegation of scientists had called upon the magnate, introduced by Cornish, to request his financial aid in the Foundation. In the course of the evening, the talk naturally turned to medical gossip and the latest scientific discoveries. Barry admitted that he overheard one of the directors of the Foundation, a famous toxicologist, relate to the group the story of the poison. At this time Barry had no idea that he would put the knowledge to use; when he decided to kill Field, he saw the advantages of the poison and its untraceable source immediately.”
“What the deuce was the significance of that message you sent to me by Louis Panzer Thursday morning, Inspector?” inquired Cronin curiously. “Remember? Your note requested that I watch Lewin and Panzer when they met to see if they knew each other. As I reported to you, I asked Lewin later and he denied any acquaintance with Panzer. What was the idea?”
“Panzer,” repeated the Inspector softly. “Panzer has always intrigued me, Tim. At the time I sent him to you, remember the hat deductions which absolved him had not yet been made.... I sent him to you merely out of a sense of curiosity. I thought that if Lewin recognized him, it might point to a connection between Panzer and Field. My thought was not borne out; it wasn’t too hopeful to begin with. Panzer might have been acquainted with Field on the outside without Lewin’s knowledge. On the other hand, I didn’t particularly want Panzer hanging around the theatre that morning; so the errand did both of us a lot of good.”
“Well, I hope you were satisfied with that package of newspapers I sent you in return, as you instructed,” grinned Cronin.
“How about the anonymous letter Morgan received? Was that a blind, or what?” demanded Sampson.
“It was a sweet little frame-up,” returned Queen grimly. “Barry explained that to me last night. He had heard of Morgan’s threat against Field’s life. He didn’t know, of course, that Field was blackmailing Morgan. But he thought it might plant a strong false trail if he got Morgan to the theatre on a thin story Monday night. If Morgan didn’t come, there was nothing lost. If he did—He worked it this way. He chose ordinary cheap notepaper, went down to one of the typewriter agencies and, wearing gloves, typed the letter, signed it with that useless scrawled initial, and mailed the thing from the general post-office. He was careful about fingerprints and certainly the note could never be traced to him. As luck would have it, Morgan swallowed the bait and came. The very ridiculousness of Morgan’s story and the obvious falsity of the note, as Barry figured, made Morgan a strong suspect. On the other hand, Providence seems to provide compensations. For the information we got from Morgan about Field’s blackmailing activities did Mr. Barry a heap of harm. He couldn’t have foreseen that, though.”
Sampson nodded. “I can think of only one other thing. How did Barry arrange for the purchase of the tickets—or did he arrange for it at all?”
“He certainly did. Barry convinced Field that as a matter of fairness to himself, the meeting and the transfer of papers should take place in the theatre under a cloak of absolute secrecy. Field was agreeable and was easily persuaded to purchase the eight tickets at the box-office. He himself realized that the six extra tickets were needed to insure privacy. He sent Barry seven and Barry promptly destroyed them all except LL30 Left.”
The Inspector rose, smiling tiredly. “Djuna!” he said in a low voice. “Some more coffee.”
Sampson stopped the boy with a protesting hand. “Thanks, Q, but I’ve got to be going. Cronin and I have loads of work on this gang affair. I couldn’t rest, though, until I got the whole story from your own lips.... Q, old man,” he added awkwardly, “I’m really sincere when I say that I think you’ve done a remarkable piece of work.”
“I never heard of anything like it,” put in Cronin heartily. “What a riddle, and what a beautiful piece of clear reasoning, from beginning to end!”
“Do you really think so?” asked the Inspector quietly. “I’m so glad, gentlemen. Because all the credit rightfully belongs to Ellery. I’m rather proud of that boy of mine....”
When Sampson and Cronin had departed and Djuna had retired to his tiny kitchen to wash the breakfast dishes, the Inspector turned to his writing-desk and took up his fountain-pen. He rapidly read over what he had written to his son. Sighing, he put pen to paper once more.
Let’s forget what I just wrote. More than an hour has passed since then. Sampson and Tim Cronin came up and I had to crystallize our work on the case for their benefit. I never saw such a pair! Kids, both of ’em. Gobbled the story as if it were a fairy-tale.... As I talked, I saw with appalling clarity how little I actually did and how much you did. I’m pining for the day when you will pick out some nice girl and be married, and then the whole darned Queen family can pack off to Italy and settle down to a life of peace.... Well, El, I’ve got to dress and go down to headquarters. A lot of routine work has collected since last Monday and my job is just about cut out for me....
When are you coming home? Don’t think I want to rush you, but it’s so gosh-awful lonesome, son. I—No, I guess I’m selfish as well as tired. Just a doddering old fogey who needs coddling. But you will come home soon, won’t you? Djuna sends his regards. The rascal is taking my ears off with the dishes in the kitchen.
